in the properties of nitrate of silver, and knows
how to decompose the light of the sun?

I repeat, that these boys, when they grow up,
ought to be very clever fellows. If there are
any new discoveries to be made, any more
secrets to be wrested from Nature, those boys
ought to be able to accomplish the work without
difficulty. They have at their fingers' ends,
settled and defined, all those important
elementary principles which their fathers and
grandfathers had to test and settle and define before
they went any further. The foundation has been
laid for them; they have but to build the
superstructure; and effect novelty by varying the plan.

I think it possible, however, that the
intellectual growth of the modern boy may be a little
too rapid, and that, like trees which grow
quickly, his timber may be rather too soft for
the solid purposes of life's carpentry.
Difficulties are so smoothed for him, and he is set
out in life so well provided with all the necessaries
for the journey, that it may be feared he
will have too little occasion to exert himself. In
the generation which is passing away, some of
the most remarkable men of their time were the
architects of their own fortunes. The temples
of fame and honour which they built for
themselves they built from the very foundations.
They began single-handed, with a pick and a
spade, to dig out the stubborn ground before they
proceeded to lay the bricks. But the sons of
these men come to their architecture with white
kid gloves on, and lay fancy foundation-stones
with silver trowels. Suppose the edifice were to
be completely destroyed, would they be fit to
dig and carry bricks as their fathers did before
them? I don't say there is any lack of energy
or pluck (I use the word, though I detest it)
about the rising generation. Those qualities
are as inherent and as well cultivated in Englishmen
as ever they were; but I do fancy that there
is a growing disposition to exercise them more
for ornamental than useful purposes.

The middle class of the present generation is
much better off than the middle class that
preceded it. Half a century ago the parents of the
middle class were nobodies: it was the sons who
struggled and made their way and raised
themselves. But now the important persons are the
parents; the sons merely inherit the silver spoon.
They are born with it in their mouths, and they
go on supping their turtle soup with it as
complacently as if they had won it for themselves—
more so. Tradesmen and tradesmen's sons act as
if their business were entailed like an earl's estate,
as if there were a law of primogeniture for
ironmongery and tea dealing. I have now in my eye
half a dozen tradesmen's sons, who, as soon as
they arrived at the supposed years of discretion,
were immediately set up with a house, a wife, a
horse, a plate basket, and an account at a
banker's. I meet them occasionally in first-class
dining-rooms, where they fare sumptuously
every day, and eat turtle and drink champagne
as by right. The inquiry I wish pursued
is this: Is the rising generation of the middle
class, with this education and these habits, likely
to sustain its substantial character and position?
Is there not some danger to them of the hard
working class below, rearing an active, energetic,
well-educated progeny, which will sooner or later
step forward and push the present middle classes
from their stools?

I will not pursue this branch of the inquiry
further, but leave it to those who may have a
wider experience to assist their philosophy. I
prefer to turn to the intellectual aspects and
influences of our modern youth. In one respect
the boy of to-day is much better educated than
the boy of yesterday. Schools have improved
of late years, and the system of teaching is
generally more intelligent and rational. Parroting
from books has gone out of fashion, and
boys are taught to understand the meaning of
the words they utter. While Greek and Latin,
still maintain their place in the curriculum,
more attention is paid to modern languages,
and almost every boy at a good commercial
school now learns French and German. The
use of the globes is no longer such a profound
depth of learning as it was in the old days.
Chemistry takes its place, and the retort of the
frontispiece is warranted by reality. But with
all the advantages of an intelligent and
comprehensive system of education, the modern boy is
at a disadvantage in respect of certain other
matters of very great importance. I refer to
the softening and civilising influence of the
belles lettres, the "artes," as the well-known
Latin aphorism has it. I am afraid the modern
boy is not sufficiently brought under this
influence. Not that he does not read enough,
for he reads perhaps too much; but he does not
read the right thing. Question one of those
very clever boys who print newspapers and
take photographs, and you will most probably
find that while he is well up in the periodical
literature of the day, the magazines and journals,
and the novels of the hour, he has never read
the Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe. Boys,
now-a-days, do not begin with sixpenny editions
of Jack the Giant Killer. They skip that
innocent and delightful starting-point in literature,
and vault over many intermediate stages
besides. I find well-educated young men of
twenty who have never read the Waverley
Novels, who know nothing of the glorious
romance of Ivanhoe, save what they have
gathered from a parody in some so-called comic
publication, or a burlesque at the theatres. I
once knew a popular author, all of the present
time, who had never read the Vicar of Wakefield.
Our young men also skip the poets. There was
a time when parents and guardians had to
complain that their sons and wards were Shakespeare
mad, and wasted their time in declaiming plays;
there was a time, not long gone, when Byron
and Shelley had to be hid away from
impressionable youths who were too much given to
poetry. But, now-a-days, Shakespeare and
Byron and the rest of the English classics lie with
dust an inch thick upon them.

It is not likely that I am going to run
down the literature of the day. It is, on the
whole, better literature of its kind than
has ever before been produced, and we have